


It's Ju-Just a... It's Only a Shirt!

by KoryMisun



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Because Rick's a Dick, M/M, Rick Reads Morty's Journal, fitting shirt, frustrated Rick, trim Morty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:03:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoryMisun/pseuds/KoryMisun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story told alternating between Morty's and Rick's point of view. Morty is graduating against all odds, preparing to leave high school and become his grandpa's partner full-time. Each have big plans for the infinite future, but there's an inconvenient wrinkle on Rick's end of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I notice I write better when I don't plan it out first. Find a random prompt or keyword and GO! Hopefully this isn't trash.  
> Morty knows he's not ugly but he's never felt a need to dress for others. I get a little annoyed when a character's outfit Never changes, so here's something to make me feel better. I found a bangin' song to write this to, here! http://goo.gl/DNl5PR  
> Go listen and support the musician, good lawd.

With his eighteenth birthday coming up fast, Morty decided to clean out his room on a day Rick really needed his help. The scientist wouldn't admit it in a hundred years, but he did. He leaned in his grandkid's doorway, grumbling for Morty to hurry up, why couldn't this wait till later, what the hell was he making room for, another sex robot?

"I'm clearing out my old clothes and donating them, Rick. Geez, can't you be patient this one time? You never tell me anything about the mission beforehand, y-yet I drop my sh-shit to follow you around _every_ time you ask, ya-ya know? Besides, this makes Mom happy. That, that'll benefit you, right?"

"I'm ignOouhhring you," Rick glared, sucking his flask and walking down the hall to the living room. "No one wants your fuckin' piss yellow shirts."

"It's not piss yellow, Rick!" the teenager shouted, getting a weird look from Summer as she was leaving the bathroom to go to work. "It's li-like butter or something!" Morty decided to just let Rick sulk and finish spring cleaning. "He'll get over it. Besides, he'll be fine without a sidekick for one little job." At least, Morty hoped so, but... what if Rick encountered galactic officials or worse, hostile Ricks?

......

"Rick, wa-wait for me, I'm coming!"

\--

"Goo-Glad I decided to put my cleaning off right, Rick?" Morty yelled as they ran down a hallway, wildly firing a plasma gun over his shoulder at some pissed aliens. He smiled when he heard squishy sounds and cries of pain, then silence. "I-I think we're in the clear, we lost them."

Rick didn't slow down, reloading his blaster on the go. "Woulda gotten this done an hour sooner if someone hadn't _sneeeezed,_ Morty!" he growled, pointing the gun haphazardly in his grandson's direction. "Also, those guys have acidic saliva. It's on your shirt, kinda ya know, eating away at it. Yeah, pa-pay more attention, Morty."

"Oohh, no no no! God!" The brunette scrambled to get out of his sizzling yellow top before his skin melted off. Rick was laughing at him from behind tightly smiling lips, until Morty dropped his shirt. "Sheez, good thing I had something on underneath or I woulda been burned for sure, Rick! ...Um, Rick, wha-what's wrong?"

Nothing, not really, was wrong. Rick was just surprised by what Morty had chosen to wear underneath his favorite, obnoxiously sunny short-sleeve. So he could wear both shirts in relative comfort, Morty had slipped into a black tee that was one size smaller than the yellow one. Rick wore layers, he could understand the need for extra protection, but it still seemed like a very un-Morty thing to wear black.

As the night progressed and the mission came to its end, Rick and Morty climbed into the ship. The scientist flicked on the air conditioning, feeling sticky and uncomfortable. Morty mumbled about needing a shower as soon as they got home as he peeled his shirt away from his stomach. "Ew, geez."

"What you get for wearing a tight shirt," Rick scolded, taking a drink from one of the bottles at his feet. He burped immediately after and started their ascent into space.

"Wh-What about you, Rick, you wear long-sleeved shirts all the time. That can't be comfortable in hot places."

"Unlike you, little turd, it takes a lot to make me overheat to the point of sweating. I've been to every planet and experienced every climate. You'll get used to it eventually." Rick wished he could stop fixating on Morty's damn shirt, which was clinging to him like another skin. The kid wasn't developing a chiseled physique or anything, but he was more than scrawny now. Rick could see the outline of his collarbones under the inky fabric, and jerked his eyes forward. It was nothing, why did it feel like something?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick had managed to put the trivial subject of Morty's clothing aside for a week or two. Warnings for a certain disgusting Jellybean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I could not think of a damn way to continue this even though I loved the idea I started with. I'd appreciate your thoughts and requests!

Whenever his Morty went through a noticeable change, the first thought to enter Rick's head was that he had the wrong kid. The second was that he got too intoxicated and was in the wrong dimension. Shit, it wouldn't be the first time that happened. Luckily he had things lying around that grounded him and kept him from feeling cosmically lost. Little sticky notes under the kitchen table, behind the TV, under a lamp in Morty's room. All of them were accounted for and said the same thing, and his portal gun said he was still in C-137.  
So what the fuck was going on with Morty, his clothes, and other little things that shouldn't be on Rick's mind but were?

While the kids were at school one winter morning, Rick decided to snoop around in Morty's room. What was the cause of his weirdo behavior, and could Rick reverse it before it drove him insane? He had better things to do, and worrying about his reality was something he drank a lot of alcohol to avoid. In the bedroom several things were obvious: Morty's poster of the lady in a swimsuit was no longer on the wall, and it was replaced by a chart of the elements. There was a cheap tool kit from Better Buy under the computer desk with a rolled up piece of paper stuffed between a wrench and a screwdriver. Morty was building something, and wasn't so fixated on girls?

Rick drank from his flask and looked in the closet. Half the yellow tee shirts that he was used to seeing Morty wear were absent, probably donated. Rick's eyes skipped over the stupid black tee that started this whole mess, refusing to dwell on it and landed on his laptop computer. Unplugged and wrapped in a thin layer of protective foam to keep dust off, like Morty didn't intend to use it for a long time.

"What the fuck are you up to?" Rick mumbled, taking another swig and bending to check under the bed, half expecting to see the concealed body of this dimension's Morty Smith crammed under it. Thankfully there was no corpse, just a bunch of hardback books.

Rick reached under and pulled out the stack, studying the covers. Theories of space and time. Quarks, atoms and molecules... Quantum physics and mechanics? Like Morty could ever wrap his little walnut around these subjects, but the interest he was taking in Rick's livelihood was somewhat flattering. At the bottom of the stack was a small book to journal in, a pen jammed into the coiled metal rings. Rick recognized it as his pen from the garage, and was tempted to open this treasure trove Morty was trying to hide.

"Uugh, he doesn't fuck with my stuff when I tell him not to, so I should-shouldn't mess with his diary or whatever the fuck this is... but if it just fell open, whooops! Rick, you clumsy old son of a gun!"

Rick wasn't a moron. If Morty caught him reading this he would be as mad as the wimpy brunette was capable of being. Worst case scenario, he would cry like a bitch. "Not drunk enough to listen to that shit," he grumbled, scanning the journal from start to finish so he could re-write it in alien code and read it in the garage. Morty would never know, he would keep studying the good shit and Rick would know if something insidious was afoot.

"Cra-aughh-ap, I hope I don't have to shoot him in the head."

~

Rick propped his feet up on his makeshift desk, feeling secure in the fact that Morty would never think the scientist went in his room. Now he could read and drink in peace. "This isn't a good idea, but I'm bored as fuck so let's roll the dice."

_I saw our dead bodies today. We buried them. I left my family behind for such a stupid reason and now they're probably dead. Sometimes I wish Rick had left me there, it'd be what I deserve._

"God, this is like from a year or something ago. Little piece of shit didn't date any of these entries," thought Rick, popping a cookie into his mouth. He continued, reading scattered thoughts, dreams, a shit ton of worries. Around Christmas time Morty stopped mentioning Jessica, apparently leaving her to Brad. He brought up Summer and Ethan, hoping they were together for a long time because Summer deserved someone as nice as him... and maybe she would be less of a bitch to Morty once she had a boyfriend.

"Wishful thinking, Mo-Moorrty," Rick chuckled in-between burps. "It's like he's being careful not to mention me in this thing... Where, where...? Ha!"

_Laundry day. Even though Rick said I won the bet, I'm still gonna wash his stuff. It's the least I can do after_

The entry abruptly ended, and the blue-haired genius was tempted to go back to look at the book under Morty's bed. He wanted to know if Morty had cried onto the paper or torn out the rest of the page.

"N-No point thinking about it. I couldn't fix it, but I-I, at least I blew his shitty fucking brains out." Rick wanted that to be enough, but it wouldn't be. Morty had rescued himself, which was a spectacular achievement for him, but he was probably scarred for life. Rick was enraged because he would never be able to fix it. "Just... get over it, keep going. It'll get better."

_Damn it. Anyway the laundry is done. I was taking his coat out of the dryer and it still smells a lot like him. I think I'm being a weirdo but just holding it makes me feel better about everything. It hurts a lot less and I'm not as scared of leaving the house. Thanks Rick._


End file.
